demented-tiger
Dreamer
How do I describe a non-human character in a world where there are no humans to compare them with? In a story I'm writing - and in several others I'm prewriting - I have constructed a world where elves have replaced humans as the dominant forms of life. Humans do not exist in these worlds, so the elves take up the roles usually assigned to humans.I am unsure how I would go about describing my characters as being elves, and not humans. I could replace "human" with "elf", but that might be too clumsy - especially when there is nothing to contrast an "elf" against. Is there anyway I could describe the people of my world (and main characters) as "elves" (or whatever word I substitute for elves) without being clumsy and/or breaking the flow of my story; especially when there is nothing to distinguish elves from other species (like pointing out the characters of a realistic fiction story are humans instead of - say - dogs)?